Emira Woods

Bio

Emira Woods is the Global Client Principal for Social Impact Programs at ThoughtWorks, a technology firm commited to social and economic justice. From 2003 to 2014, she was co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, and an expert on U.S. foreign policy with a special emphasis on Africa and the developing world. She has written on a range of issues from debt, trade and development to U.S. military policy. Emira serves on the Board of Directors of Africa Action, Just Associates, Global Justice and the Financial Policy Forum. She is also on the Network Council of Jubilee USA.

Emira completed her undergraduate studies at Columbia University and her graduate studies at Harvard. Prior to joining IPS, she was program manager for the Committee on Development Policy and Practice at InterAction, serving as a principal staff contact for advocacy at the UN, the international financial institutions, USAID and Treasury. Previous to that, she served as a program officer of Oxfam America’s Africa program.

Ms. Woods is a regular commentator on CNN’s Your World Today, BBC’s The World Today (Weekend), and appears regularly on Al Jazeera and Voice of America. She has hosted a WashingtonPost.com online chat and has published pieces in BBC’s Focus on Africa magazine, NAACP’s Crisis magazine as well as the Miami Herald, the Christian Science Monitor, New York Newsday, the Nation, the Baltimore Sun, and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, among many others.

Ms. Woods is chair of the Board of Africa Action and serves on the advisory committee of the Zimbabwe Alliance as well as the Humanity United/Trustafrica Liberia program. She is also on the Board of Directors of Global Justice and is a member of the Network Council of Jubilee USA.